Cherry Blossoms Ever Blooming
by devilisinthedetails
Summary: Roald's relationships with his Yamani princesses.


Cherry Blossoms ever Blooming

"What rhymes with orange?" Gilmyn of Naxen frowned down at the parchment on which he was transcribing what had to be his hundredth sonnet to Lady Alyssa, whose carrot hair and cucumber eyes had made quite an impression when she debuted at court a week ago. Doubtlessly this latest love poem would remain unsent as the ninety-nine that had preceded it, Roald thought, stifling an eye roll.

Regretting that he had chosen to sit with a pining Gilmyn, Road answered, spearing a sprout with a fork and transferring it unenthusiastically to his mouth, "Nothing in Common rhymes with orange. Weren't you paying attention to Master Yayin's lecture on poetry two days ago, or were you too busy writing your own verses?"

"Clearly the latter." Gilmyn tore at his dirty-blonde hair in frustration. "What is a fellow to write if nothing rhymes with orange? It ought to be a law that every word should be required to rhyme with at least one other for poetry's sake and my sanity."

"You could try a slant rhyme," suggested Roald, washing the bitter sprout down with a sip of creamy milk. "Something that doesn't exactly rhyme but sounds like it does."

"That's cheating." Gilmyn's scowl deepened.

"It's a legitimate poetic device." Deciding not to press the point beyond that, Roald proposed another solution. "You could try not to fall in love with carrot tops."

"Carrot tops are so stunning, though." With a dreamy sigh, Gilmyn planted his chin in his palms, smudging ink on his skin in a way that only undermined what scant dignity the thirteen-year-old had left in Roald's eyes. "If I marry a carrot top, I could produce children with dazzling auburn or strawberry blonde hair instead of boring dirty-blonde. A man can't change who he's attracted to even for the cause of high art."

Roald smiled slightly at the melodrama that defined Gilmyn's crushes but said in his most helpful tone, "Why don't you rearrange the verse poetically? Instead of saying her hair is orange, write that she is orange of hair. Lots of words rhyme with hair."

"Including fair." Obviously inspired, Gilmyn's quill scratched across the parchment. "Thank you for your help, Roald. You're a prince."

"I'm a prince whether I help you or not, Gil." Roald laughed. As the son of the Prime Minsister, Gilmyn had been raised alongside Roald and his siblings to such an extent that Roald almost considered Gilmyn a cousin the way Godsfather Gary was cousin to Papa. They were children of the court, living among its cutthroat politics, its crippling pressures, and false promises since birth, and understood each other well.

"Touche." Gilmyn chuckled amiably as he continued with his tribute to Lady Alyssa.

The bell ending dinner rang not long after that, and there was a thunder of moving furniture as the pages pushed back their benches and rose at the same time. The boys jostled for position as they streamed toward the door—because everything was a competition among the pages—and when a hand stretched out to tug Roald out of the mass of boys shunting toward the door, he at first thought it was an overzealous page before he recognized that it was Lord Wyldon.

"Your Highness, their Majesties wish to speak with you at once." Lord Wyldon's gaze was odd, which Roald assumed (with a contorting stomach that threatened to vomit up the sprouts he had been so reluctant to eat) meant another disaster had occurred in the war they were waging against human and Immortal enemies. Squeezing Roald's shoulders firmly, Lord Wyldon commanded, "Go do your duty."

"Yes, my lord." Roald ducked his head obediently to conceal how peculiar he found that phrasing to describe speaking with parents.

He faded back into the mass of boys, slipping next to Gilmyn, who muttered, "What in the name of Mithros was that about?"

"Mama and Papa want to speak with me, but I don't know what about," explained Roald as they left the dining hall. He shot Gilmyn a sidelong glance since sometimes Gilmyn learned more about what was going on in the kingdom from eavesdropping on the Prime Minister than Roald knew as Crown Prince.

"If I did, I'd tell you." Gilmyn clapped Roald on the back as they parted paths, Gilmyn drifting toward the pages' wing, and Roald directing his feet toward the royal quarters. "Run along now. Don't keep their Majesties waiting."

Worried about what important person must have died or which crucial battle had been lost, Roald hurried into the royal solar, where his parents were sitting on a sofa. They were speaking softly to one another but broke off mid-sentence as Roald entered.

"Your Majesties." Roald bowed. "You wished to see me."

"Sit down, Roald." Mama shifted on the cushions and patted the spot she had created between her and Papa. "We want to talk to you."

Roald had been alive long enough to notice that if someone tried to brace him for a conversation inside of just starting it without preamble it was often one that could bring his world crashing around his ears, so it was with some trepidation that he slipped onto the sofa between his parents.

"Have some cherries or almonds." Mama waved a palm at bowls of pickled cherries and sugared almonds that were on the table in front of the couch.

Roald hadn't noticed the treats when he came in and was too nervous to have an appetite, but it would have been rude to refuse his favorite sweets, which he sensed had been laid out especially for him.

"Thank you, Mama." Roald took a handful of sugared almonds.

"You know that the war against the Carthaki renegades, the Copper Isles, and these Immortals have stretched the realm thin. Even one of those enemies would be difficult to defeat, but all three at once could be impossible without allies." Papa's voice and eyes were harrowed. "The Yamani Islands are themselves beset by Immortals and pirates, and have, after years of negotiation, agreed to an alliance with us."

"You understand how alliances between countries are sealed." Mama cupped Roald's cheek.

It wasn't a question, but Roald, numb except where Mama's hand warmed his cold skin, answered it anyway. "With a marriage. A royal marriage."

"Our diplomats have arranged for you to marry an Imperial princess." Papa patted Roald's knee that wouldn't stop trembling. "We believe that it will be a good match for you."

Roald was tempted to argue that he was too young to be betrothed—because while he had been brought up with the idea that he would marry whoever his parents picked out for him, accepting the really of that was different than dealing with the theory of it—but then he remembered that a three-year-old Gallan princess' engagement to a four-year-old Maren prince had been announced only last month. Roald was lucky that his parents had waited until he was well out of the nursery before arranging his marriage. He couldn't imagine what it would be like to be engaged while still figuring out how to walk and talk.

Closing his eyes, he reminded himself that his country needed him in order to secure the alliance that would bring the support necessary to win or at least survive this dreadful Immortals war. If he dug in his heels and refused the match, thousands would die for his stubbornness and selfishness. His personal happiness was nothing compared to the welfare of the realm, and, he assured himself, just because a marriage was arranged it didn't have to be unhappy. Most marriages among royalty and nobility were arranged, after all. A marriage could begin out of duty and morph into love, he supposed, not that he had a much greater understanding of love than Gilmyn with his sappy sonnets.

Opening his eyes again, he asked, "What's the Imperial princess' name?"

"Princess Chisakami." Papa looked proud of pronouncing all the strange syllables properly. "She's your age and a favored daughter of the Emperor."

"Princess Chisakami," repeated Roald, thinking that the way the gentle sounds flowed into one another was lovely. He hoped that Chisakami was as beautiful and graceful as her name. Then he wondered what she had thought when she heard his name—if she had even been told it. Probably that it was sharp, short, and abrupt. He would have to show her that he was more pleasant than his name.

"You can write to her through the Yamani ambassador." Mama hugged Roald's shoulders. "Your father and I are also inviting Princess Chisakami and a delegation to the palace next year so you may become acquainted with your betrothed."

"Thank you." Roald wanted to sound poised but couldn't keep the desperation out of his voice as he went on, "What do I write to Princess Chisakami? I don't know anything about the Yamani Islands except where to find it on a map, so what do I say to her?"

"Don't worry about that." Papa squeezed the nape of Roald's neck. "Just be yourself and she'll find you charming, Roald."

"This pearl of wisdom coming from the man who went out of his way to flatter me with flowers, candies, and poems when we were courting," remarked Mama dryly, and Roald blushed, not wanting to think about his parents courting.

"I had to make a special effort to be polite because I'm such a ruffian." Papa grinned, and Roald wondered if he and Chisakami would ever love each other the way his Mama and Papa did. "Roald is much more courteous than I am, so he should just be himself."

"Roald is a gentleman, I won't argue that." Mama leaned over to kiss Roald's forehead, murmuring, "Be kind to the princess, and she will come to love you if you're patient."

Not wanting to play the fool when he wrote to his future wife for the first time, Roald spent much of his free time over the next three days in the library, researching the Yamani Islands. The results of his work were sparse since the Yamani Islands had for centuries adopted an approach of isolation to the Eastern Lands but apparently the Immortals had shattered that too. The entire world was changing courtesy of the return of monsters that should have stayed in nightmares.

Achingly aware of his ignorance of the Yamani Islands and the princess that he was writing to, Roald tried to begin a letter to Princess Chisakami as he studied in Cleon's room. His brain feeling like a cloth that had been wrung empty after laboring over mathematics problems that made confusing numbers spin before his eyes, Roald stared at the intimidatingly blank parchment before him and asked, "What does a boy write to his betrothed anyway, Cleon?"

"I haven't the foggiest idea, Your Highness." Cleon flipped through a reading Master Yayin had assigned too rapidly to be comprehending a word.

"But you've been betrothed for over a year." Roald frowned. Not long after Cleon's father had been slain by a centaur, his mother had arranged for him to steady their fief's shaky finances by marrying a lady whose family was new nobility—unlike Cleon's, which could be traced back to the Book of Gold—but wealthy. Cleon's wife could bring him money and he could offer her a powerful name. "Surely you've written to your lady."

"No." Cleon shrugged languidly. "What would I do? Write her with bold declarations of how I'll ride off to her convent and rescue her from the evils of dance lessons? How romantic. I'm sure she'd swoon."

"You're not any help at all." Roald massaged his temples. "I'm trying to begin a relationship with my betrothed and all you can tell me is weak jokes."

"You could call her moon of your heart and assure her that her love eclipses you." Cleon's face was a giant smirk.

"I don't think we're at that point in our correspondence yet." Roald's lips quirked. "I was hoping for something a little simpler and more sincere."

Cleon was useless as a dull blade blade, so Roald returned his focus to his lettering, writing through his awkwardness:

 _Though we have never met, I rejoice in the news of our engagement. I hope a visit may be arranged soon that we may meet face-to-face, but in the meantime, I would introduce myself to you through letters._

 _I spend most of my days in academic study and military training, but my favorite activities are horseback riding, reading, and simply watching the sunset. I am interested in yours and believe that we will have much in common._

 _I will include a sketch of my beloved horse Shadow for your enjoyment though I hope you will be able to see him in person soon._

 _Faithfully yours,_

 _Roald of Conte, Crown Prince of Tortall._

It was only as he went back to fill in the salutation that he realized with chagrin that he wasn't familiar with the proper form of address for an Emperor's daughter. Embarrassed at such a deficit in his education, Roald made a mental note to ask Master Oakbridge about the matter the following afternoon after etiquette.

After etiquette the next day, Roald gathered his courage and approached Master Oakbridge's desk, where Master Oakbridge was already busy fiddling with a seating chart for some court event.

"Master Oakbridge." Roald made an extra effort to be polite for the etiquette instructor. "May I have a moment of your time?"

"If it truly is a moment." Master Oakbridge glanced up from his paperwork with strain turning his face puce. "These seating charts for the Gallan ambassador's reception won't write themselves, Your Highness."

"Of course not. I'd hate to come between you and your seating charts, Master Oakbridge." Roald hid his internal amusement at Master Oakbridge's obsession with seating arrangements behind a gracious nod. As Papa said, it took all sorts to run a kingdom. Even someone as batty as Master Oakbridge had his purposes. "I just wished to know the proper form of address for an Imperial princess from the Yamani Islands."

"Questions on Yamani etiquette are hard to answer, Your Highness, as so many of their customs are still unknown to us due to the isolation that has prevailed between our cultures for centuries." Master Oakbridge's fingers drummed against his desk, and Roald nearly gaped at having stumbled across an etiquette question that even Master Oakbridge couldn't answer satisfactorily. "I suppose that referring to her as Her Imperial Highness or Your Imperial Highness would be the appropriate address."

"My thanks, Master Oakbridge." Roald nodded and stepped away from Master Oakbridge's desk. "I'll leave you to your seating charts."

As he hastened off to his next lesson, Roald could hear Master Oakbridge muttering to himself about the need to find a book on Yamani etiquette so they would all be educated to avoid offense when Princess Chisakami visited.

Once his classes concluded for the day, Roald raced back to his room to finish addressing his letter to the princess so he could dispatch his manservant Bennet to the Yamani ambassador with it before he went down to dinner.

He did not receive a reply to his letter until after training had let out for the summer, but he wasn't shocked by that since mail sent by ship was notoriously slow. When the note from Princess Chisakami arrived, he tucked it into his breeches pocket, saddled Shadow, and rode into a forest clearing for some privacy while he read what his betrothed had written him. With sunlight dappling the ground before him through a green veil of leaves, Roald sat on a rock and read:

 _From Her Imperial Highness Princess Chisakami_

 _To His Royal Highness Prince Roald, greetings_

 _I hope this letter finds you well. It was kind of you to write to one so unworthy as myself. I have heard that arrangements are being made for us to meet in person, an event I anticipate with joy._

 _It befits a noble prince to devote his days to the study of academic and combat arts, and, from your letter, it appears that we share many pursuits. I am a voracious reader—particularly of poetry—and I enjoy riding my mare out with my ladies and guards to pick flowers for pressing. I have enclosed a pressed cherry blossom of my own creation for your pleasure. I pray to Yama that it will delight you._

 _Sunsets are one of the great beauties of the world. Whenever I watch the sunset over the ocean by the Imperial Palace, I am filled with humility and awe. I look forward to watching many sunsets with you when we meet._

 _Until then I remain your devoted_

 _"Princess Chisakami"_

Reaching the end of her letter, he fumbled around in the envelope until his fingers brushed against the dry petals of the cherry blossom she had pressed for him. Slipping the flower out of the envelope, he discovered that it still smelled sweet. It had traveled from his betrothed's hand across the Emerald Ocean and lost none of its fragrance. Closing his eyes, he could envision her picking the flower and pressing it for him even if he didn't know what she looked like. He could even picture her lifting the cherry blossom to her nose to inhale the scent as he had.

He wrote back to her, thanking her for the pressed cherry blossom he assured her he would treasure, and sent her a small painting of a sunset along with the note. He hoped that it would make her smile because he liked to imagine that she had a nice, gentle one.

Page training resumed before he received another letter from her. Master Oakbridge had managed to hunt down the elusive tome on Yamani manners that he had been searching for last term, a book that turned out to be authored by Baron Piers of Mindelan, the Tortallan diplomat who had drawn up Roald's marriage treaty with the Yamani Islands.

Roald met the diplomat's youngest daughter, Keladry, in page training that autumn, and she answered all his questions about Yamani customs better than any book could have. Sometimes he feared that he was asking her too many questions, but she remained polite and patient in her responses. He didn't know whether that was because she saw him as a friend or just because he and Neal of Queenscove were the only ones who would talk to her at all beyond what was strictly necessary for training. He hoped that she viewed him as a friend but was afraid that it would be rude to ask.

The night he received a return letter from Princess Chisakami at last, Roald, studying with Neal and Kel in Neal's room, found it hard to concentrate on the schoolwork he had been assigned that evening. He would much rather think about his future bride than about the piles of studies that he had to get through before lights-out.

"Why do we study in my room anyway?" Neal seemed to be looking for a reason not to tackle his mathematics problems. "Your room is much more spacious than my humble home, Your Highness."

Thinking that nothing about Neal was humble, Roald explained calmly as he did every time Neal dragged the subject of where they studied up for another flogging, "You don't have a manservant hovering at your elbow, waiting to report every breath you take to your parents."

"You don't know he's spying for your parents," protested Neal, stubborn as mud stuck to the heel of a boot.

"I know he's spying for someone," Roald insisted quietly. "If it's not for my parents, then it's for one of their political enemies. I prefer to assume that it's for my parents. Call me naive but I like to see the best in people, Neal."

"You're naive." Neal wrinkled his nose. "That would clarify so much about you now that you mention it."

"Let me focus on this poem for Master Yayin." Roald waved a hand for Neal to hush. Staring down at the courtly love poem written a century ago in language that had been antiquated even for that period, he grumbled, "Never mind. It's hopeless. Do they have poems like this in the Yamani Islands, Kel?"

If not, Roald might exile himself there to avoid the sonnets.

"They have poems but not like these," Kel said. "Their poems are short and organized around the number of syllables rather than by rhyme."

"If it doesn't rhyme, it's not poetry." Neal assumed his haughtiest air.

"Tell that to the Yamanis," countered Kel levelly.

"It sounds like a much simpler style," Roald cut into the debate. "I think it's an interesting approach."

"Poetry isn't supposed to be simple." Neal clucked his tongue. "It's meant to be dramatic and beautiful."

"There can be beauty in simplicity, Neal," pointed out Roald, deciding that it would be impolitic to mention that the poetry Neal had written to his crushes did not suggest he was as great an expert on poetry as he believed.

"That's what the Yamani believe." Kel nodded, and the rest of the evening was spent in companionable silence as they completed their schoolwork.

The next day, Roald used his precious little free time to write to Princess Chisakami what he had learned about the differences between Tortallan and Yamani poetry. He told her that he hoped she would come to appreciate Tortallen poetry as much as she did the poems of her people and enclosed a book of Tortallan poetry that he had bought for her while he waited for her latest letter to arrive.

She wrote back with a response that didn't reach him until the day before the pages started their spring camping trip. She thanked him profusely for the poetry book which she assured him she was savoring ever word of and presented him with a tome of Yamani poetry. Since it was written in Yamani, he couldn't read it, but he figured it was the thought behind his betrothed's gift that counted. He would have asked Kel to translate if he hadn't been embarrassed and not particularly interested in poetry anyhow.

That was the last letter he ever got from Princess Chisakami. Two weeks before she was due to arrive in Tortall, Roald sat next to his parents, reading a letter from the Yamani Emperor to his father until the words made a horrible sense:

 _To His Royal Majesty, King of Tortall_

 _From His Imperial Majesty, Emperor of the Yamani Islands, greetings,_

 _We write to you with woeful tidings. We are assured that Your Majesty is apprised of how, after much complicated negotiation about the intended marriage of the honorable Prince Roald, your eldest son, and our most beloved daughter Chisakami, which was designed to foster perpetual peace and an indissoluble union as between man and wife between our territories, we dispatched our said daughter Chisakami to one of our palaces en route to Tortall. With intense bitterness of heart, we have to tell you this: destructive death (which seizes all of us, young and old, rich and poor, alike) in quaking earth has lamentably snatched from us our dearest daughter, whom we favored best of all, as her virtues demanded._

 _No fellow human being could be surprised if we were inwardly desolated by the sting of this grief, but we who have placed our trust in the gods give praise that one of our own family, whom we have loved all her life, has joined our ancestors, where she may gladly intercede for us before Yama herself._

 _When our mourning for our honored daughter Chisakami has passed, we will hope to negotiate another marriage with Tortall to forge the peace our departed daughter's marriage would have sealed. We are confident of your gracious understanding during our period of grief."_

The letter nearly slipped from Roald's fingers. Princess Chisakami couldn't be dead. She was his age, much too young to leave this life, and she had been the favored daughter of the Yamani Emperor, one of the most powerful men in the world. If the Emperor and his warriors couldn't keep her protected, nobody's life was safe, and that thought was almost as terrifying as imagining Princess Chisakami lying forever broken beyond the repair of even the most skilled healers in the rubble of a destroyed palace.

"I can't believe she's dead. It wasn't as if I was in love with her"—He had indulged in daydreams of one day being in love with Princess Chisakami, though now all they would ever be was daydreams—"but I was fond of her."

Fondness would be all he ever felt for her. Death had frozen their relationship before they could even meet. He had never seen her face but he would miss the girl he had started to get to know in her letters and gifts.

"In due time, another marriage with another princess will be arranged." Mama clasped Roald's wrist. "You'll come to be fond of her too and maybe more than that."

"What if she also dies before I can meet her, Mama?" Roald asked the question that had been tormenting him. Maybe the gods had cursed him to betrothals that would never become marriages and princesses who would die before he even laid eyes on them.

"That's like asking what will happen if lightning strikes you twice, son." Papa shook his head. "The odds of it happening are so long that it's not worth driving yourself mad with anxiety."

To prove that he was not going crazy, Roald took a deep breath and tried to make a rational contribution to the conversation. "I'll write to the Emperor to express my deepest condolences and see the letter gets into the hands of the Yamani ambassador. That's the right thing to do, isn't it?"

"Yes." Papa's tone was heavy. "That's the right thing to do. Just show the letter to your mother or me before you have it delivered to the ambassador."

Roald wrote the letter of condolence and held onto the notes that Chisakami had sent him in a special chest along with the book of Yamani poetry and the pressed cherry blossom she had given him. As the years passed, the cherry blossom still smelled sweet and the book of poetry remained an impenetrable mystery.

It was only when Princess Shinkokami, who did not, thank Mithros and the Goddess, die before Roald could meet her came to Tortall that Roald found a way to read any of the poetry book as it became a habit for them to sit on a garden bench while she translated the Yamani poetry into Common for him.

One day as they were sitting beneath a cherry blossom tree that dropped delicate petals on their hair and eyelids with every strong gust of wind with Lady Haname and Lady Yukimi standing by a fountain as far away as propriety would permit to offer Roald and Shinkokami as much privacy as possible, Shinkokami paused between poems. "I never asked, Roald, but I am curious. How did you acquire a book of Yamani poetry?"

If it hadn't been a direct question from the lady he was falling in love with in a way that he never had with Princess Chisakami, Roald might have ignored it. As it was, it was difficult to speak of the dead when the promise of spring bloomed around him, and it was hard to talk to his betrothed about Princess Chisakami under a tree of cherry blossoms that reminded him so much of the pressed flower she had sent him years ago. "It was a gift from Princess Chisakami before her untimely death," Roald said at last.

"You held onto it all these years?" Shinkokami's flicking fan had a meaning Roald couldn't decode.

"She seemed sweet when she wrote to me." Roald wondered if he had put his foot in his mouth and made Shinkokami angry or jealous. "I couldn't bear to get rid of it."

"She would seem sweet to you, but she wasn't so sweet to me when she pulled my hair and pinched me when we were children because my family was in disgrace with the Emperor." Shinkokami's fan was hiding her face now, a sure sign that she was angry, Roald realized. "Of course she'd have been nice to you, though, since you were to be her husband. Your husband and your mother-in-law are the most important people in your life if you're a Yamani lady, and Princess Chisakami could always charm those who mattered to her. There just weren't a lot of people who mattered to her."

"You matter to me, Shinko. I've upset you." Roald would have tilted the fan away from Shinkokami's face if he wasn't afraid of slicing his fingers on the sharp edges. "It was tactless of me to bring up the late Princess Chisakami. Forgive me."

"There's nothing to forgive you for, Roald." Shinkokami's fan snapped shut. "I said too much. Please forgive me."

"You didn't say too much." Roald slid his hand across the inches separating them on the bench to wrap his fingers around hers. "You're to be my wife, Shinko. You can say anything to me. Of all people, we should be truthful with each other."

Shinkokami's voice was so soft that Roald nearly missed her words in the wind stirring the cherry blossoms. "The truth is that I'm glad I'm marrying you and Princess Chisakami isn't."


End file.
